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Performance, Fitness, and Conditioning

Squats or lunges? Sprints or long distance? Power lifting or high intensity interval training? How do athletes get stronger? Faster? More agile? More explosive? And how can you help them become the beasts they want to be?

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Degree Types
Minor
Institution
Complementary Programs
Kinesiology
Heart
Distinctive Requirements
Capstone
Document
Research Facilities
Gill Athletic Center

Performance, Fitness, and Conditioning prepares you to prepare high performers. As a minor offered in the Kinesiology department, the program gives you access to professors who bring extensive experience into the classroom as educators, advisors, coaches, and researchers. Excellent facilities—including the Human Performance Lab and Neuromuscular Performance Lab—will provide you with hands-on experience testing cardiopulmonary, metabolic, and neuromuscular systems on equipment used in the health and fitness industries.

Future Career Paths

Immediate career options (not requiring graduate school) for students of the program include:

  • Personal trainer
  • Physical therapy technician
  • Strength and conditioning specialist
  • Coach
  • Teacher

Recent Kinesiology graduates have attended graduate school at places like George Washington University, Salisbury University, the University of Arkansas, the University of Maryland, and Texas A&M University, etc. to become:

  • Physical therapists
  • Occupational therapists
  • Physician assistants
  • Cardiac and pulmonary therapists
  • Athletic trainers
  • Exercise physiologists

Distinctive Courses

KIN 3226 - Principles of Strength Development

This course will introduce the scientific principles governing strength development as well as demonstrate a practical approach to training for muscular strength, endurance, and power. The basic principles of program design, technique instruction, and safety will be covered. This course will provide students with the knowledge and skills pertinent to the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) exam.

KIN 3227 - Conditioning, Speed and Agility

This course will examine the scientific principles governing physiological adaptation to conditioning and speed training as well as instruction on the practical application of these principles as they are applied to maximize performance. A wide variety of aerobic, anaerobic, speed, and agility training approaches will be examined with emphasis placed on proper program prescription based on the needs of different sports.

KIN 3241 - Exercise Psychology

This course identifies, examines, and applies specific psychological theories and constructs within exercise settings in order to understand and modify exercise behavior and identify psychosocial influences and consequences of exercise.

Performance, Fitness, and Conditioning Program Requirements

Performance, Fitness, and Conditioning Minor
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The McDaniel Commitment in Action

The McDaniel Commitment—a series of opportunities guaranteed to all students—provides enhanced mentoring and coaching, and ensures every undergraduate student completes at least two meaningful experiential learning opportunities.

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Study Abroad

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Internships

Students with professor in Kinesiology lab.

Research

Become Strong Kinesiology student lifting weights
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Kinesiology’s new labs and classrooms open in Gill Center

The newly renovated Gill Center bustles with activity. After all, this is the epicenter of McDaniel’s study of movement — the place Kinesiology students and faculty alike call home. Three classrooms, three labs, nine faculty offices and a seminar room were newly built inside Gill Center to support a program that prepares students for careers as health professionals, coaches, athletic trainers, physical education teachers, personal trainers and others whose work centers on the science of physical activity and movement.

Everything you learn at McDaniel College connects you to real life. Kinesiology student Isabella researched the effects of strength training on self-esteem in untrained females. 

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Related Programs

Biochemistry Health Sciences Biology Kinesiology, M.S. Sports Management
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Keep in Touch

Tell us a little about yourself and we'll share updates & information. (We'll also make sure you don't miss any important deadlines.)

Keep in Touch
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See Yourself Here

Take your first steps on the Hill! Visiting campus is one of the best ways to determine if McDaniel is right for you.

Visit McDaniel
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